Best Fantastic Erotica

by Cecilia Tan

  Xon nodded. “I don’t need reassuring.”

  “Yes you do. I don’t have to be sensitive like you to know I’m not exactly normal.”

  “Neither am I.” Xon drew Illan’s hand to his mouth and kissed the palm, closing his eyes at the warmth against his lips, the scent of Illan’s sweat.

  “Oh... yeah, okay, that’s good,” Illan huffed out, clutching at Xon’s thigh. “Please.” He tugged Xon’s head up and kissed him again, rougher now, tongue thrusting insistently like a probe socketing deep within a port. There was still radio silence—just static, Xon thought, conscious of the pun. “Off,” Illan moaned into Xon’s mouth, tucking his fingers under Xon’s shirt and dragging it off him roughly.

  Xon sucked in an unsteady breath as Illan’s hands ghosted up his back, into his hair, down to his shoulders. Xon gently led Illan’s hand back to his nape, resting it there. “It feels good even without ports.”

  Smiling, Illan obliged, stroking his fingers along the topmost knobs of Xon’s spine, drawing Xon into a slow, hard kiss as he explored the virgin skin. Xon shuddered beneath the touch, eyes closed, struck with a sudden, melancholy need to imprint the experience on himself to return to it in the solitary years to come.

  Illan licked at his jaw, at the hollow of his throat, dipped down to taste a nipple. Xon arched, crying out softly, and Illan dragged the flat of his tongue slow and hard across the nub, then teased it with the tip. Xon didn’t even realize how firmly he held Illan’s forearm until Illan winced and pleaded, “Easy, I promise I won’t bite it off.”

  Xon smoothed his hand over the fading marks his fingers had left on Illan’s skin. “I’m sorry.”

  “We’re both overstimulated. Expected hazard.” Another kiss, slow and languid, and Illan inched his hand up Xon’s leg. When there was very little thigh left to stroke, he murmured, “Ready?”

  Both yes and no would be accurate, Xon thought, and nodded.

  Illan rested his hand over Xon’s cock through his slacks, and Xon gritted his teeth as the warmth of Illan’s palm transferred through the fabric. Everything that had come before was nothing in comparison to this, the simple hot touch of Illan’s hand promising so much. “Please,” Xon breathed.

  Gingerly, Illan unfastened Xon’s slacks and tugged fabric this way and that until Xon’s cock was exposed, arching up sharply for Illan’s attentions. “You’re so beautiful,” Illan murmured, drawing his hand lightly up the shaft.

  Xon let out a mangled little sound, shivering. “I want you to stay when it’s over.”

  “I will. I want you inside me before I go.”

  Xon squeezed his eyes shut, forcing relaxation as he had been taught. The collateral inhibition from the static was all that allowed him to keep any kind of control at all; if Illan kept up that kind of talk, though, the static would hardly matter.

  “Don’t,” Illan murmured. “Not this time. Just let go.” He bent over Xon’s lap and licked the head of Xon’s cock into his mouth.

  Gasping, Xon dug his fingers into Illan’s shoulder. All at once he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even think beyond the exquisite wet heat of Illan’s mouth, the warmth of his exhaled breath ghosting over the shaft. “Too much.”

  Illan shook his head minutely, sucking harder. Light glinted off the trio of polished ports at Illan’s neck as he began to bob. Xon slipped a hand over them, gasping at the cool metal against his fevered palm. Illan moaned approval, and the vibration was enough to loose what was left of Xon’s self-control. Gritting his teeth, he arched hard and came in rough, growling waves, fingers tight in Illan’s hair as Illan sucked and swallowed hungrily.

  “That was one of my favorites,” Illan said as he sat up, “before I was a lab rat.”

  Illan kept a hand cupped around Xon’s softening cock. The unexpected comfort of the heat was deeply welcome as Xon leaned against him, waiting for the lightheadedness to fade. “What would you like?” he breathed.

  “Just kiss me and stroke me off,” Illan requested, dragging Xon’s hand to his pants. “Please,” he added, as if Xon were in imminent danger of backing away.

  “I will,” Xon assured, moving slightly closer on the bed to find the proper angle. He nudged at Illan’s lips again, licking at them as he found his way along the unfamiliar fastenings of Illan’s pants. The intensity of Illan’s arousal increased, nudging against Xon’s consciousness, but Xon found it nearly pleasant. The certainty that Illan’s desire matched his own was well worth the infringement upon his thoughts.

  Illan gasped almost painfully as Xon closed his hand around Illan’s cock. “Please don’t stop,” he said, grabbing Xon’s elbow tightly.

  “I won’t.”

  Xon found a slow, smooth rhythm, his hand tight around Illan’s shaft; in contrast, the kisses were almost delicate, as if they hadn’t been hungrily plundering one another without the slightest decorum only a few moments ago. Illan let out a soft whimper into Xon’s mouth, still clutching hard at his arms. “Please, don’t stop.”

  “I won’t,” Xon whispered, stroking a little faster, a little harder. Illan was tense with need, shaking with it, and Xon found it arousing and somewhat disturbing all at once.

  Illan thrust against Xon’s hand, rubbed himself against it, and then, so quietly Xon could barely hear the words: “It takes a while this way, please don’t stop.”

  Of course. A man accustomed to somatics would find the simple stimulation of a hand difficult to focus into. “I won’t,” Xon promised again, varying his stroke to provide a little interest, attempting to trick Illan’s senses into perceiving more stimulation.

  As if finally convinced of Xon’s seriousness, Illan leaned forward to kiss Xon hard, and with that came a slow, steady rocking of his hips. Xon shifted his grip again, drawing the pad of his thumb hard up the underside of Illan’s cock as he stroked. “Like that, like that,” Illan pleaded, gripping Xon’s forearms tightly, and Xon did it again, harder, faster. Xon realized, with a deep, almost giddy thrill unlike anything the static had ever given him, that he knew Illan was moments away from orgasm not from his thoughts but by the simple intimate reading of his body.

  Breaking away from Xon’s mouth to cry out sharply, Illan shuddered hard as he came, pale jets of semen painting the inside of Xon’s wrist as he kept up the underhanded stroke. Xon continued much longer than he would have himself, remembering the evident intensity in the somatic stimulation he’d witnessed, and was rewarded by half a dozen more deep, jerking contractions before Illan’s grip on Xon’s arms eased.

  “That was unbelievable,” Illan breathed. He gave Xon an exhausted little grin, his face a deep red sheened by sweat.

  “Better than somatics?”

  “Nowhere in the same league as somatics. Fuck, I missed that. Nothing compares to human touch. Nothing.”

  Pulling Illan close, Xon stroked the smooth plane of his back, between the shoulderblade port and the somatics; Illan’s body was beginning to chill. “Nothing does,” Xon agreed, pressing his face into the side of Illan’s neck. Now, with the heat and distraction of lust behind them, Xon could again sense the pale net of Illan’s neural patterns. It remained reassuringly faint, and Xon wanted nothing more than to savor the touch of Illan’s sweat against his lips, the subtle rise and fall of Illan’s chest against his own, until he was forced to let go.

  “Are you all right?” Illan asked softly, stroking Xon’s hair.

  “I am.”

  “You still can’t feel me?”

  “You are still, for the most part, a cooler.”

  Illan laughed at that, pulling back to smile at Xon warmly. “I never would have expected I’d be so glad to hear myself called that.”

  Illan was beautiful when he smiled, Xon thought, though the years of port-testing had in some ways taken their toll. There was a certain age around Illan’s eyes, a sorrow deep within them Xon wished he could erase. He wondered how he himself appeared, and frowned as he realized how few had glimpsed him in the years since he’d last s
een Illan, and how few of those few had lived to describe him.

  “What’s wrong?” Illan murmured.

  “Only melancholy.”

  Illan nodded, and Xon suspected he understood with a depth Xon would not likely find again. “Speaking of coolers, I’m starving,” Illan announced.

  “Would you like a benbox?”

  “Perfect. I haven’t had one of those in years.”

  Xon nodded, fastening up his pants. “Tagen doesn’t bring you benboxes?”

  “They’re kind of big to sneak in. And nutritionally questionable.”

  “Is it a mandate of your station to remain in excellent condition?”

  Illan grinned, gesturing toward Xon’s chest. “Is it a mandate of yours?”

  “I work below trade. I have many enemies.”

  Illan got to his feet, leaving his shirt where it lay. “I don’t, or I assume I don’t. And it’s not really a mandate to stay fit, it just makes it easier. Gives me something to do. Sometimes Tagen sneaks me treats. Like I’m his favorite pet.”

  Xon led the way to the kitchen, frowning slightly at Illan’s words. “Is that how it feels? Less than human?”

  “Sometimes it feels a lot worse than that. And sometimes it feels a lot better. It’s a bizarre profession. I’m sure you can relate.”

  Xon nodded, setting chopsticks and a glass of cycwater before Illan, then one of the better benboxes he kept on hand: stewed plums and gingered noodles. Illan gave a low moan, something Xon thought might be appreciation, and for all that it had been years since his last, Illan expertly dashed the flavor across the noodles. He pulled a huge knot of them to his lips with the chopsticks, sucking them in all at once. “Mmm,” he moaned, rolling his eyes in such an exaggerated ecstatic fashion Xon couldn’t help but chuckle.

  “I missed you,” Xon decided.

  Illan grunted, trying to work his way around the mouthful as quickly as possible. “I missed you, too. Even though we only had... you know.”

  Xon gave a small grin at that. There had been nothing at all regulation about spending the evening of a forty-eight hour work pass sharing the tiny cot of his research subject, but he had hardly hesitated when Illan requested it. The both of them had been too worn out from the day’s testing to seriously act on the attraction, and Xon had found himself inhibited by the surveillance, but the inside of Illan’s mouth had tasted warm and sharp, like cinnamon, and the unexpected coolness of steel beneath his fingers as he caressed Illan’s body had been thrilling in its illicitness.

  Illan quieted, sighing lightly between mouthfuls of noodles. Suddenly blunted affect. Withdrawal from conversation. The growing silence hurt; when Illan didn’t speak, Xon had only the weakest observational tools with which to interpret, tools he hadn’t used in decades. “What are you thinking?”

  “Does it bother you that you can’t just reach in and find it yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you trust what I told you, or would you always wonder what you’d actually have perceived if I wasn’t quite so hardwired, and whether it would’ve matched up?”

  Xon watched Illan stir his noodles, contemplating the answer. “I don’t know. I haven’t been in this situation before.”

  “Honest answer, at least.” Illan licked a bite of stewed plum from between his chopsticks and added, “I’m thinking about how it doesn’t really matter, how much alike we are, how much we understand each other. At the end of the night, we’re strangers again. Stuck in our respective holes.”

  “Fair enough,” Xon conceded.

  “Don’t mind me. I’m just hungry,” Illan decided. “Takes a lot of strength to be optimistic these days.”

  Xon settled himself automatically, slowing his breaths, emptying himself of thought as much as possible, and simply watched Illan eat for the pleasure of seeing it. Illan finished every last bite of the benbox and glanced up at Xon, then away.

  “What is it?” Xon asked.

  “I don’t know if the situation’s affecting you the way it is me, but... I could go again.”

  Emboldened by Illan’s words, Xon leaned over the counter and kissed him, tasting ginger as he drew his tongue against Illan’s. Illan moaned softly, cupping the back of Xon’s head in his hand. “Okay,” he whispered, lips moving against Xon’s. “Definitely could go again now.”

  Xon nodded, coming around the counter to take Illan’s hand and lead him to the bedroom once more.

  Illan shucked off his pants before stretching out on the bed, pillowing his head on his arms. For long moments, Xon simply stood in the doorway and gazed at the long pale line of Illan’s body across his bed, at the reflection of his flesh in the window wall.

  “Xon?” Illan asked, turning his head.

  “It’s all right.” Xon left the last of his clothing buffers draped beside Illan’s shirt on the chair. He crawled up onto the bed, seating himself astride Illan’s thighs. Illan moaned softly, rolling his hips back a little, and Xon grasped them in his hands, stilling them. The perfect line of somatics seemed almost beautiful now, something aesthetic as well as functional, and Xon bent to flick the tip of his tongue against the skin just under the lower rim of the spinal port.

  “Fuck,” Illan cried out, trying to buck upward, but Xon kept his hips tight against the bed; the result was a strangely sensual squirm, Illan’s spine arching and flexing. Xon bent again, tasting hot, sweaty flesh as cool metal stroked the underside of his tongue. He’d barely been able to stand touching them all those years ago; it felt unconscionably forbidden to taste them, far better than Xon would have imagined.

  Illan stiffened and shuddered, sucking in several hitching breaths before he could form words. “Please. Fuck me. Hard, Xon.”

  Xon closed his eyes, resting one hand lightly over the somatics. Even when he focused, there was no shift. Illan’s arousal was impossible to miss now, but nothing else coalesced within the indistinct field barely visible beyond the lust. “Turn over.”

  Illan rolled over, his cock tight and hard against his belly; he stroked his palm along it as Xon repositioned himself. “Turn off the lights.”

  “The lights?”

  “Yeah. Too much visual stimulation.”

  Xon palmed the wall control, and at once the room was lit only by what little street light made it past the window wall. “Better?”

  “Perfect.”

  Xon crawled onto the bed, settling himself between Illan’s pale thighs, stark white against the darkness. “How careful should I be?” he asked, oiling one hand liberally.

  Illan’s laughter sounded from the darkness. “Right now I’d value speed over care.”

  Smiling, Xon skimmed his dry hand over Illan’s thigh and hipbone and belly, learning his exact position in the dark. He slid one slick finger into Illan easily, and Illan tipped his hips up for the second. The third came harder, and Xon thrust the trinity of fingers forward till Illan’s panted gasps and grunts found words. “Stop, stop— just fuck me, Xon, please, now.”

  Xon barely had time to slick his cock before Illan sat up and grabbed at his waist, kissing him hard, dragging Xon back down with him. There were no words for this kind of desperation, just Illan’s harsh, hot breaths. Xon closed his eyes again, searching the net, desperate for it to remain indistinct; he could barely sense it at all beyond the pounding of his own heart. His hands shook as he spread Illan’s thighs and reached down to guide himself in, fumbling in the dark for breathless, uncertain moments. Then, there, bodies aligned just so, and he slid halfway in with a startled grunt.

  “Fuck—hard, Xon,” Illan gasped.

  Xon squeezed Illan’s hip, a silent promise to do so as soon as he could stand to move at all. The clench of Illan’s muscles against him, the heat, the shuddering arousal of his breaths, the pungent scent of Illan’s sweat—Xon could barely stand to hold still, let alone thrust. After another shivering breath, he slid an arm under the small of Illan’s back, just above the somatics, and braced his weight on the bed with the othe
r. Illan wrapped his legs around Xon’s thighs, and instinct took over from thought; Xon thrust forward, gasping as Illan tightened against him.

  “Yeah,” Illan breathed, tangling a hand in Xon’s hair and dragging him down for a rough, off-center, biting kiss. “Let go. Do it.”

  Xon pulled away from the kiss, going still, head tipped slightly to one side. He knew that Illan needed ferocity to compete with the intense stimulation of the somatics, knew that thrusting this hard into someone who hadn’t had sex in so long hurt, knew too much, and the low murmur of thoughts from the street—

  Illan grabbed Xon’s face in both hands. Xon could just make out his eyes, dark and intent. “Be here with me. Now.”

  Xon swallowed hard. The thoughts from the street always murmured. Roughness to compensate for somatic stimulation, the pain of inexperience—those were reasonable conclusions, not readings. The static held; it had to. It wasn’t a reading. It was interpretation of signal. Eye contact, facial expression, body carriage. It had to be.

  Letting out a slow breath to steady himself, Xon gave a tentative thrust. Nothing fell apart, and he buried his face in Illan’s neck, rubbing it against the sweat there, biting at the slick skin.

  “Yeah.” Illan’s breath was warm and moist against his ear. “Harder. Hurt me.”

  Something loosed itself in Xon then, took over what he couldn’t manage in a hyper-conscious state, and the next thrust was hungrier, meaner, drawing a stifled grunt from deep in his chest.

  “Harder.”

  There was excitement in Illan’s voice. Despite recognizing it from voice pattern alone, Xon knew it, knew it with as much certainty as if he had reached inside Illan himself for it. “Keep talking,” he urged, arching up for another rough, deep thrust.

  “Oh fuck—like that,” Illan shuddered, digging his fingers into Xon’s shoulder. “Hard like that, so I can feel it.”

  So I can feel it. Testing the theory that pain would only begin to reach the intensity of somatic stimulation, Xon held Illan down by one shoulder and shoved in as hard and fast as he could manage.